Starring: Baird Stafford, Sharon Smith, C.J.Cooke, Mik Cribben, Danny Ronan, John L.Watkins.
Director: Romano Scavolini.
I picked this up randomly at the store the other day. That's basically the whole preamble to this write-up. It was old, it was a new release, I think I had at least heard of it...that's it. So, enough talk, time for some action.
Wow, I think this movie isn't going to pull any punches...I might be in for it. This is obviously a cheap-o psycho killer flick. Looks very grindhouse. Seventies style guitar music, rough cut photography...this could be a lot of fun.
Opening with a man laying in a bad covered in blood with a Womans severed head (among other things), the head opens her eyes and he starts shrieking...and then he's in a hospital.
Then it's "The First Night" in Florida-I know this because there's a helpful title card-and we have a buxom babysitter and screaming kids who warn there's someone outside looking in the windows. Kathy ignores this, of course. I doubt this will end well for Kathy.
There's some nice voyeuristic photography going on; We stand on the roof and follow Kathy as she creeps through the lawn below and then a massive shadow dominates the frame, surrounding her small form. Our guy in bed screams, back to the house where Kathy is apparently fine...and now we're in New York with the guy in bed...and he's being tied to the bed by a hot brunette.
Actually, there's a lot of interesting and disorienting photography happening. Switching from point of view, with the brunette looking down, to other vantage points: boy standing in the doorway, blood splatters throughout the room, the brunette slapping the man on bed...then her head is gone and blood is spurting out everywhere and then back to our mental patient freaking out. Memories, bad dreams, what is going on, you name it...it's an interesting looking piece of editing. It's all very grimy, though: still has those old projector crackles and black spots.
First stop out of an insane asylum? Porno theater. Obviously.
Well, that was certainly a lot of nudity. Not that I'm complaining, really. Just understanding what kind of movie I'm getting into. He leaves the theater, calls a sex line and we have a woman masterbating and he starts seizuring and...oh, hell, I got no idea. I'm through the looking glass. Obviously, we've got an old school tits and blood nutcase movie on our hands. Not really a bad way to kill a lazy pre-work evening, though. Could be worse.
Y'know, something tells me his "cure" didn't really work as well as they seem to think it did.
Feels like a pretty accurate representation of a serial killer, actually...his anticipation of the kill(complete with creepy raised eyebrow), quick attack on the Woman in her home, she falls down, he straddles her and gives an "O-Face" as he slides his phallic-symbol knife into her gut. Then he weeps, eats part of her (?) and then freaks out and goes to bed. The element of sexual violence but emotional innocence and arrested development is kind of textbook serial killer stuff. I think I'm pinning ribbons where they don't belong, though: this is clearly nothing more than a cheap-o exploitation film. Nothing here but tits and blood, but those things ARE admittedly well-presented, at least for an exploitation film. Decent kill scene, anyway.
I'm making the assumption that this other Woman we keep coming back to is the final girl type? I like her well enough: single Mom, trying to date, sleeping with some hairy dude(which, hooray for '81. Us hairy guys are like lepers now)...just when you think she's kind of a horrible Mom she appropriately reacts when told over the phone that her Son is covered in blood....which, holy shit, that kid is a DICK. Kid walks in from taking out the trash, covered in red stuff and acts like hes been stabbed. Mom rushes home with her Boyfriend-who is actually quite sympathetic and nice, surprisingly-finds out he's totally faking it. I'm impressed at his commitment to the bit, though...he allows his Mom to rush home terrified before dropping it to his siblings. I probably only could have committed to that bit for a few minutes before I'd end up cracking.
You know, I think if I had a car, I might go out to the beach to sob, too. And I'm not even a serial killer.
Wow, that C.J. Kid is a huge dick. His sense of humor is really cruel. After pretending to be stabbed, he plays a prank on his babysitter by making her think she's under attack in the bathroom. Mean kid. I'm assuming he's the bastard son of the killer, which would make sense. As soon as I thought to myself "hey, it's boy who cried wolf" Mom's Boyfriend actually references it...and has a nice moment where he talks to C.J about being a nice guy. Mom's Boyfriend is my favorite character. I don't know what his name is. His conversation with C.J.-"You know what? I'd be very proud to be your Father"-actually touched me. I'm amazed.
Whenever there are children in these older flicks, I always have to wonder: is this movie ballsy enough to kill kids? You never quite know. It's usually a rarity, even in those more aggressive days, but it does happen here and there. I think the eldest daughter was just killed off, so I have my answer. At least, I think it was the Daughter: this movie seems pretty allergic to close-ups of certain characters so we know whose who. Oh, no, it wasn't...but it does appear that two of C.J.'s young friends were killed...so, that still counts. Murdered minors. Nothing was shown-well, the girls body strapped to a wheelchair was found by the other kid before his apparent off screen kill-but its still a ballsy thing.
Wow, the police jumped to 9 Year Old C.J murdering his friend? Kind of pretty big conclusion to leap to, even if C.J. is a mean-spirited prankster. No mention of the girl who died first...weird. Just a weird event in general in the middle of this film. Doesn't really fit the killers M.O. either...his kills are out of some sort of sexual frustration. Why kill a 9 year old boy? I sort of buy the older girl from that perspective (girls are girls to psychopaths, for the most part) but why murder Tony?
C.J. seems irritated that his Teachers sent him home from school because they think he killed Tony. That's...I mean, wow. Mild irritation at being accused of murdering your best friend? This kid is gonna grow up to be the worlds greatest grief counselor.
Kathy clearly made an error when agreeing to babysit. She and her boyfriend are certainly not doing to survive this current plan to have sex on the living room floor. Well, okay, they made it that far. But now the boyfriend needs a joint and she needs a shower. This will not end well.
I know that C.J has used the weird costume to scare her before(as a dummy), but how is it that Kathy could possibly think the six foot three dude coming down the stairs was C.J? That makes no sense.
Holy shit, C.J. just grabbed a gun out of Mom's dresser and straight up shot the dude. Did not see that coming. He shot him like six times! Damn. This guy can take a lot of punishment, though...guys still kicking after multiple gun shots. C.J is going back in to finish the job, though...jesus, this kid has balls. He ran out of bullets, so he grabbed a shotgun and put two more shots in him.
C.J. isn't the only kid doing some batshit insane stuff...Killers flashback shows him as a kid beheading a Woman and then murdering his Father with an axe. It's a pretty grotesque and shocking scene, with a ton of blood. Crazy stuff.
Final Thoughts: While basically nothing more than a standard exploitation film filled with tits and blood, it does have one or two moments of real characterization and plot (mostly surrounding the family and their own difficulty dealing with one another), even though the killer is basically some random crazy guy with sexual identity problems. It's a scattered and disjointed movie with good kill scenes but a poor sense of narrative structure and scene cohesion. In the end, though, this movie certainly didn't care about that stuff and mostly wanted to focus on a pretty run-of-the-mill but exceptionally visceral slasher film.
Yep. C.J. was the guys son...so basically this movie turned out to be fairly Oedipal. Huh.
If nothing else, this movie features a nine year old boy shooting a serial killer eight times with two different firearms.
Final Rating: Gonna go with Two and a Half Stars. I feel like I may have short changed it just a little, but it's my gut reaction.
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